At Rabin rally in Jerusalem, Labor chief rips Netanyahu, Ben Gvir over 1995 protest

The annual rally to mark the assassination of former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin is held in Jerusalem’s Zion Square.

“A great and brave Israeli leader who led Israel to great achievements and peace – was called here, by many people, a traitor. Here they shouted ‘death to Rabin,'” Labor party leader Merav Michaeli tells the crowd, referring to a right-wing protest at Zion Square ahead of the murder.

“Here Itamar Ben Gvir handed out the poster of Rabin in SS uniform. The same Itamar Ben Gvir who now disguises himself as a care bear and is trying to hide and rewrite history,” she adds.

Michaeli rips opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu, who like now as head of the Likud party at the time, for attending that 1995 demonstration.

“Anyone who denies that Yitzhak Rabin’s murder was political and that the incitement against him was organized and planned against him, are complicit with the instigators who stood here in Zion Square in their attempts to rewrite history,” she says.

Channel 12 news estimated turnout at around 1,000.

No members of the Rabin family attend this year’s rally, which comes days before the November 1 election. The annual event is usually held on the Saturday immediately before or after November 4, the date Rabin was gunned down by right-wing extremist Yigal Amir.

Traditionally held at Rabin Square in Tel Aviv, the site of the assassination, the rally was held in Jerusalem this year due to construction work currently underway in the square.